Mamba Motorsport - SRGTC Mallory Race Report Page

C23R First Race - SRGTC Mallory

Author: Dave
Editor: Rich
Date: October 2005

Following the successful launch of the new C23R at the Donington Kit and Performance Show the previous week, the car was doing its very first race on Sunday 23rd October at Mallory Park, with Ken Culverwell behind the wheel again. This was the last in the SRGTC series for the 2005 season.

Being a first outing Ken's and our objective was just to finish the race, gauge the progress we'd made and ensure the car was available for the final show of the year, at Exeter on 19/20th November. As it turned out we ended the day a very creditable 9th of 27 - a superb result for such a new combination of car & driver.

We are in no doubt that we have a real winner on our hands with the Ford Duratec engine/VAG transaxle combination in that great C23 chassis.

The Full Story...

To set the scene we'd been researching the options for a modern, available, lightweight, yet affordable and tunable combination of engine and transaxle to establish a base for the next phase of development. The Ford Duratec engine was a clear choice for the heart of a Lotus inspired car. But we then needed a transaxle that could handle the high torque output of this engine and selected a current VAG transaxle to complement the Duratec.
We mated these together at the end of July this year and unveiled the result at Donington on 15/16 September. The car covered 110 miles during the open track sessions on the Sunday at Donington, giving potential customers an experience enjoyed without exception - all agreed that the handling and performance of the C23R were absolutely superb - glued to track as if it were on rails - beautifully balanced, quiet and no dramatics.

Race Day
An early start was made from the Oxfordshire/Wiltshire border in order to get into Mallory for scrutineering at 08:00 - if you look closely at the pictures you can see the only change we needed to make to the car were some temporary "TOW" stickers to go on the roll-bar.
We were in the very first practice session at 09:00 so there was still dew on the ground, but the track was drying nicely. As an instructor at Mallory, Ken knows the track really well, and the car was soon putting in fairly consistent laps and the session passed without major drama.
The result from practice was that the car and Ken had gone really well. posting a 54.69 second lap, which put them on row 3 of a 9 row grid. This was ahead of many of the more powerful cars and in the thick of the action for the race start. After practice, there were the normal pre-race checks and then a welcome rest before the race at 13:40.

The race commenced on time and the grid of 27 cars was assembled. This was the signal for John and I to disperse to opposite ends of the track to get a different view of the action. The first start of the race was clean down to about the 5th row of the grid, where a minor racing incident put 5 cars out of the race, effectively before it started. John saw the red flags long before he saw our car cruise safely past him at the hairpin! The second start was some 24 minutes later, so the C23R got two racing starts for the price of one.
The second start was less eventful with the remaining 22 cars all safely navigating the inital corner and indeed lap. The C23R was soon in the thick of some keen racing alongside a mix of machinery, Cobras, Jaguars, a Ginetta, a Europa, a Stratos and a group of Crossle 9Ss. The result was excellent with the car qualifying in 9th and finishing 9th - a very creditable performance first time out. Essentially the car, engine and transaxle worked faultlessly straight out-of-the-box and this outing underlines the huge potential of this total package.

Epilogue
Since the race we've analysed the results and examined the car in detail and reckon we can easily find the 2 -3 seconds per lap to get us up with the first Club Driver on the day - a superb result justifying our belief that we have not only a very pretty and nostalgic race-car, but also one that is highly competitive and capable of delivering race results at a really competitive price.

Conclusion
A truly invigorating 14 days which has definitely confirmed the car really does perform out-of-the-box!